I Am A Child of Divorce is a proud part of Hope 4 Hurting Kids and we’ve decided to move this article to that page as we continue to build a repository of resources for children of divorce and children and teens who have experienced a variety of other traumatic events in their lives. We hope that you will check it out there!

I Am A Child of Divorce is a proud part of Hope 4 Hurting Kids and we’ve decided to move this article to that page as we continue to build a repository of resources for children of divorce and children and teens who have experienced a variety of other traumatic events in their lives. We hope that you will check it out there!

If your parents are separated or divorced, there is no doubt that you have experienced times of sadness. If left unchecked, that sadness can easily grow into depression, and depression which is not dealt with can sometimes lead people to think about, plan or even attempt to take their own life (suicide). If you are considering suicide, please know that no matter how hopeless things might seem right now, they will get better eventually. And, no matter how much it might seem like no one really cares, someone cares about you because those of here at I Am A Child of Divorce care about you. We are so sorry that you are dealing with so much pain in your life that you have reached this point, and we want to do anything we can to help you.

If you are thinking about suicide, please take the following steps:

Call a suicide prevention hotline to talk to someone. The National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) will connect you with a skilled, trained counselor at a crisis center in your area anytime of day. You can also find an online chat feature at their website which is available from 2:00 PM to 2:00 AM Eastern Standard Time every day. Outside of the United States, check out the International Suicide Hotlines page at Suicide.org for a list of hotlines by country.

Find a trusted adult that you can talk to. If you’re not comfortable talking to someone in your family, talk to someone from church, a teacher at school, a family friend or some other trusted adult. Let them know that you are hurting so much that you’ve thought about taking your own life.

Seek professional help, a counselor or therapist can help you to work through the pain you are experiencing. They can’t change your circumstances, but they can help

If you feel like you may actually attempt suicide, try not to be alone. Having someone with you can reduce the possibility of any impulsive actions.

Stay away from anything that you might consider using to hurt yourself.

If none of these options work for you, call 9-1-1 or check yourself into your local emergency room.

Emotion wheels can be great tools for helping you to figure out what your feeling, introduce you to new emotions and help you to figure out what emotions might be underlying why you’re feeling.

This first wheel was created by Dr. Gloria Wilcox who is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in St Petersburg, Florida. It is a great tool for identifying emotions you might be feeling following the dissolution of your parents’ relationship. Emotions are grouped into six broad categories including Sad, Mad, Scared, Peaceful, Joyful and Powerful.

This second wheel is not quite as colorful but includes even more emotion words to broaden your emotion vocabulary. We found it originally on http://makalaonlife.tumblr.com.

I Am A Child of Divorce is a proud part of Hope 4 Hurting Kids and we’ve decided to move this article to that page as we continue to build a repository of resources for children of divorce and children and teens who have experienced a variety of other traumatic events in their lives. We hope that you will check it out there!

Yikes. What a tough question! Divorce is tough, and divorce hurts. There is no doubt about that. Perhaps your parents are in the process of finalizing their split or maybe they’ve already been separated for years. Either way, it is a healthy exercise to look for the positive even in really bad situations, and you will find it beneficial to think about any “good” things that might come have come out of this situation. After all, if life hands you lemons…make lemonade, right?!?

My parents divorced 20 years ago. I was 4 years old at the time. If you asked me then, I would have told you that nothing good can come out of divorce. Looking back though, there were some positive things.

#1 Less Yelling (sort of)

Many times you will find that parents yell a whole lot prior to a divorce. If your parents are going through a divorce or are divorced now, you might look back and realize that the yelling was really kicked up a notch before they split. When parents split up, the level of fighting tends to decrease. In my case, the fighting was replaced with a strange silence that I wasn’t used to, and I enjoyed it. That’s not to say that your parents will never fight after the divorce. Some still do, but if you’ve been living the daily grind of listening to your parents’ never ending arguments, the divorce may give you some much needed peace and quiet.

Many children of single parents end up in a situation where their parents start dating again and they don’t like the new boyfriend or girlfriend. If there is a reason not to like them – like they make you feel uncomfortable or are physically or emotionally abusive, you need to tell someone about it. However, if you just don’t like them and you don’t know exactly why, there are some things you should keep in mind to help you adjust to your parent’s new love interest and keep from damaging your own relationship with your parent:

Remember, your parent’s boyfriend/girlfriend is not your new parent. They shouldn’t act like they are, and you shouldn’t expect them to fill that role. Talk to your mom or dad about it, but make sure you do it in a respectful way. Explain that you don’t like the idea of them dating. If it hasn’t been long since the divorce, explain that you need time to adjust to the divorce. Explain that you are trying, but that they need to understand that this hurts you. Don’t give ultimatums and don’t place blame. Just share your feelings. Remember that you don’t have to like the person your parent dates. Unless that person makes you feel unsafe for some reason, you don’t have to like them. Don’t try to force yourself to feel a certain way, you can’t. Try to start over. If there isn’t a reason not to like the new person in your parent’s life, go back and “redo.” Start over remembering that you are just working on forming a new friendship regardless of what your parent feels about this parent. Engage in idle chit-chat. Find things that you both like and talk about them (even it’s ice cream). Without the pressure on either of you, you might find it easier to start a relationship and even form a friendship with this person if you just start over. Guard your heart. Your parent might be in love, but that doesn’t mean this relationship will last. If you do put some effort into it and end up liking this person, guard your heart a little bit to avoid being overly vulnerable in the event the relationship ends. Work on your relationship with your parent. Just because the two of you disagree doesn’t have to destroy the relationship. Find some common ground or work together to set up some ground rules that you both can live with.

You might also find something useful in the following previous questions answered here on I Am A Child of Divorce:

I Am A Child of Divorce is a proud part of Hope 4 Hurting Kids and we’ve decided to move this article to that page as we continue to build a repository of resources for children of divorce and children and teens who have experienced a variety of other traumatic events in their lives. We hope that you will check it out there!

I Am A Child of Divorce is a proud part of Hope 4 Hurting Kids and we’ve decided to move this article to that page as we continue to build a repository of resources for children of divorce and children and teens who have experienced a variety of other traumatic events in their lives. We hope that you will check it out there!

That is a fair question, and if you’ve gone to church and/or believe in God you may very well have asked yourself that question since your parents separated or got divorced. Where was God? Why didn’t He stop the divorce? Why didn’t He answer my prayers? Maybe you even blame your parents’ divorce on God? Maybe you wonder how a loving God could let your family fall apart like it has.

In order to understand where God was when your parents divorced, you must first understand God’s view of divorce and His love for all people.

God Hates Divorce

The Bible is clear that God hates divorce. He hates all sin, and divorce is a sin. Divorce is one of many sins that God does not like, but sin is basically anything that God wants us to do that we don’t do and things He doesn’t want us to do that we do. This sin separates us from God and can hurt us and/or the people around us which is one of the reasons God hates it.

God didn’t design a world where moms and dads would not get married or would get married and then just decide to walk away. If you are upset of the disruption and changes in your family, you can rest assured that God is even more upset about them. If you are sad about those changes, know that God understands your pain and grieves over the situation you are in. It is not the way He designed things to be, but it the result of people choosing not to follow Him.